Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes was confronted by Turkish female “activists” during her visit to Istanbul this week (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, 9/29/05).  “‘This war is really, really bringing your positive efforts to the level of zero,’ said Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal, an activist with the Capital City Women’s Forum.”

During the same meeting, “Fatma Nevin Vargun, a Kurdish women’s rights activist, said that ‘war makes the rights of women completely erased and poverty comes after war – and women pay the price’.”  She also denounced the arrest of Cindy Sheehan.

Karen Hughes “asserted that women are faring much better in Iraq than under the rule of Saddam Hussein.”

No kidding!  Have these female “intellectuals” ever been to Afghanistan?  Have they ever seen the torture and rape carried out by the Saddam regime?  Have they ever seen anything of the world other than that foisted upon them by the Arab press?  Does Vargun, the Kurdish activist, recall the deaths of thousands of her people, including women, under Saddam?  Do any of them understand that this war and the entire war on terror is improving the rights of women, not “erasing” those rights?  Do these people think?  How dare these “activists” confront a representative of the nation that is freeing them form the evils of their own kind.  Where were these women when Saddam was in power?  Were they “activists” then?  If it were not for America their “activism” would have ended long ago. 

National security…the federal government

Local security…local and state government

My security…me

Why can’t Democrats understand those simple facts?

If it’s not George Galloway spouting his anti-American, anti-war rhetoric its Cindy Sheehan yelling and swearing about the evil’s of the nation that her son died for.  Then it’s Phil Donohue yelling about how people on the right raise their voices.  Of course there is always Michael Moore spurting one diatribe after another.  And Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy and…  It goes on and on.  Leftists on the street have even picked up this tactic.

What these leftists all have in common is that they cannot debate on fact.  They scream and yell and intimidate.  They are just plain loud.  They project onto their adversaries that it is them doing the yelling and intimidation.  They voice emotion without factual foundation.  About half of our population seems to take their feelings as fact.  This gives the left its power.  That and making sure that the poor stay poor so that they can yell about how the right is keeping them down. 

America needs debate.   We need real debate based on facts.  We need to stop the yelling, do our homework, and discuss the FACTS.  But lets do it a little more quietly!

Another one of those interesting comparisons. 

Muammer Gaddafi decided to give up his weapons of mass destruction under the Bush administration. 

Kim Jong Il has decided that it is best to forego his nuclear plans following President Bush’s stubborn insistence to not give in to North Korean bullying tactics.  While this issue is not completely resolved, we are moving in the right direction. 

In comparison, how many governments made the correct choice during the Clinton administration?  How many caved in during the Carter administration?  As I recall, it was America that caved during the Clinton era.  Remember Somalia?  And it was America that caved during the Carter administration.  The hostages in Iran would have been left to die except that President Reagan resolved the crisis even before he was elected. 

The bad guys understand only one thing:  Strength.  Neither Clinton nor Carter demonstrated even the slightest hint of real strength.  They did show large quantities of appeasement.  Neville Chamberlain did that as well.  Look where it got him and us and the rest of the world.

The left used to define President Reagan as a buffoon.  He just smiled.  The left is doing the same with President Bush.  While he is not as effective a communicator as was President Reagan, he still just smiles…and watches as the evil doers get the point and cave.

I started to develop a list of irrelevant jobs in 21^st Century America.  This was not a tough task.  I started with one job and decided there was no need to go any further.  This one serves as a symbol for all irrelevant jobs that any of us could possibly come up with and, even more importantly, epitomizes all that is wrong with America today.

Most irrelevant job in America:  President of NOW.

Kim Gandy is president of NOW (The National Organization of Women).  NOW is an organization that has absolutely no relevance in 21^st Century America.  Ms. Gandy is a shrill loudmouth; an ideologue without intellect; a woman who shouts over the voices of those much smarter. Her role in America has no value and yet she continues to view herself as important.  And she continues to be called upon by the press to voice her irrelevant opinions.  Often she is called upon to be used as a laughing stock.  Unfortunately the leftist press often turns to her to speak as if she had something of value to say.

America has moved forward.  Men have moved on.  Women have moved on.  The left has not.  The left continues to support and fund organizations that are fighting the battles of the 1960’s.  NOW is not the only such organization but it is representative of all of them.

Real Americans are fighting battles that are relevant to the 21^st Century.  It is no longer enough to blame everything on gender and race. Most of us realize that it is about personal accountability, responsibility, and accomplishment.  What was true forty years ago is no longer true and no longer relevant.  Lets move on.

According to the Associated Press (September 13, 2005), Norway just decided its future.  Christian Democrat Prime Minister Kjell Magne, “who campaigned on promises of tax cuts” has been ousted.  He was beaten by Labor Party leader Jens Stoltenberg “who campaigned on a pledge to spend more on welfare”.  This defeat occurred despite the fact that the Magne administration had “presided over four years of unprecedented prosperity”.  Apparently, the problem was that “cracks were appearing in the welfare state”.

This is exactly what we are dealing with in America.  The left wants tax hikes to bolster a failed welfare system.  The right wants tax cuts that will bolster the economy and the eventual welfare of all of us.  Norway is a socialist state that continues to prove its mediocrity. 

The people of Norway are so used to being taken care of that they are cannot even see how their welfare system has made them and their country weak.  Is that where America is going as well?  If it is up to Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton, that is exactly where we will end up. 

Now more than ever we must stand strong against the left to prevent the left from destroying all that is good about our nation.

The ACLU, AARP, the New York Times, and Jesse Jackson, to name just a few, are against requiring that voters show identification before voting.

If I know your name and address I can vote in your place.  If I get to the polls first, my vote counts and yours doesn’t.

The left loves that fact because they think their voters will beat me to the polls.

What if I beat them?

I am a conservative.  I won’t be voting the way they want.

I win.

From the 1920’s until today, all levels of government have failed the people of Louisiana.  Most importantly, that failure has come from those most directly responsible for the people of the state…the city and state governments.  And yet, as we see the result of that failure, the city and state officials of Louisiana cannot stop themselves from blaming everyone else.  Most significantly, they blame the current Republican federal administration.  That is because the Democrats must follow their motto.  They must not veer from their manufactured reality.  This is the motto of the Democrat party of 2005:

Ask not what you can do for your country…

Ask what your country can do for you…over and over and over again.

Always blame Republicans for everything that goes wrong in your life…

Including natural disasters, terrorism, and bad hair days.

Never admit your strengths as individuals, families, or communities…

For if you do the government will stop giving you free stuff.

And most important of all…

Always profess that you are an avid and caring advocate for the poor…

Just never help the poor become rich…

And never become poor.

This is a day for silent contemplation of the events that shook America four years ago.  It is also a day to begin the process of reuniting as a nation.  It is a day to remember what our enemy did to US.  It is a day to remind ourselves that we are weak against evil when we stand divided but exceedingly powerful when we stand as one. 

On September 24, 2004, I predicted on this site that the Sandy Berger investigation would never happen.  I was wrong.  There was an investigation...a very quiet one.  It really didn't make the papers in any detail and was rarely mentioned in the electronic media.  The result of that investigation was hidden on the back pages of many newspapers earlier this week.

Sandy Berger was found guilty of not only copying documents and taking them from the National Archives but purposefully destroying some of them and lying about it.  I do not believe that anyone will ever know the exact content of the destroyed documents.  But they apparently related to what America's knew about terrorism under the Clinton administration.  In addition, there was no mention of who actually saw the documents after they were stolen by Mr. Berger.  While the stated intent was to assist Mr. Clinton there is still a question as to whether or not they were used to assist Mr. Kerry.

For his crime, Sandy Berger received a small fine, a few hours of community service, and the loss of his security clearance for three years.  Quite a deal.  Imagine if he had been an operative for the Republican party instead of a Clinton hack.

I was wrong in my prediction that an investigation would never happen...if you can call what happened an investigation.  I was correct about the outcomes.  We still don't know who actually gained benefit from the information... Clinton or Kerry.  And, Mr. Berger received no serious consequence for his actions.  Another sad day for America.

A time of crisis is not the time to blame each other.  This doesn’t stop the left. 

They blame FEMA deputy chief Michael Brown for not acting soon enough. 

They blame all Americans (especially Republicans) for being racist and not caring about the poor black residents of New Orleans. 

They have blamed President Bush for not giving enough money to Louisiana for hurricane control.  

The left seems to have plenty of blame to go around when it comes to Republicans.  But the left seems to have little stomach for blaming their own. 

Let’s look at the facts. 

Michael Brown had no real experience in emergency response.  Yet he was confirmed for the job of deputy chief of FEMA by the Senate by members of both parties (Nancy Brown, Associated Press, September 8, 2005).   Where was their concern at that time?  In addition, FEMA has never promised that it could respond to a major crisis in less than 72 to 96 hours.  They looked good after 9/11 because the people of New York did so much work early on in the process.  The politicians in Louisiana did not look so good.  Their governor didn’t act quickly despite requests from the President to do so.  The Mayor of New Orleans seemed totally confused before he became angry at the federal government and blamed them for the problem.  And where was Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu in writing legislation that would have helped to improve hurricane and flood control in her state?  More on that later.

Louisiana has been a Democrat controlled state for a very long time.  I lived there for a time back in the late 1960’s.  The Democrat politicians of Louisiana (and the nation) spend most of their time trying to convince the poor that “we are looking out for you”.  Yet, those same Democrat politicians allowed the poor of Louisiana to live in terrible housing in terrible neighborhoods.  Many of those poor were African American.  Where was legislation geared toward really helping the poor?  I don’t mean more programs to create dependency.  I mean more programs to instill self-sufficiency.  The poor will always be victimized by catastrophe.  The goal is to help more people to NOT be poor.  The Democrats don’t get this because their power comes from poverty.  Meanwhile “evil capitalists” are digging deep to offer money, goods, services, and jobs to those who have been uprooted from their homes, regardless of skin color.  This is not about race.  It is about the Democrat policy of keeping people of all colors dependent for their own purposes.

Of course, President Bush has been blamed for everything from ignoring the crisis to actually having the levees destroyed to kill poor people to not sending enough money to Louisiana for hurricane control.  The first two are too ignorant for response.  But did President Bush send enough money to Louisiana for hurricane control?  According to Michael Grunwald of the Washington Post (September 8, 2005), President Bush has sent more money over the past five years for Army Corps of Engineers projects in Louisiana  than to any other state ($1.9 billion).  The closest runner up was California with $1.4 billion.  In addition, President Bush sent more money to the state for Corps flood control projects than did President Clinton during his past five years. 

So if the money was sent, why wasn’t it used for projects to increase the strength of the levees to category 5 as opposed to the existing category 3?  THAT is the question that the Democrats in Louisiana have to answer.  According to Grunwald’s article, much of that money was spent on pork barrel projects that had nothing to do with upgrading the state’s ability to control the impact of category 4 and 5 hurricanes.  For example, the Corps launched a $748 million project to construct a new lock that was not needed.  Additional money was spent dredging little used waterways.  When one of her pet projects didn’t meet the requirements of a cost-benefit analysis, Senator Mary Landrieu wrote legislation to force the Corps to change their numbers.  OH!  That is where Landrieu has been.  Promoting pork barrel projects at the expense of hurricane control projects.  Of course, now she is saying that President Bush is at fault.  By my reading of the Constitution, it is the legislative branch and not the executive branch that writes legislation.  As Ricky Ricardo would have said, you’ve got lots of ‘splain’n to do, Mary.  This might be a good time to go hide and stop taking pot shots at the President.

Of course the levee system in New Orleans should have been strengthened to handle a level 5 hurricane.  It is up to politicians from the city and state to push for this and it is up to the two Senators from the state to write legislation to get the money needed for those projects.  That didn’t happen. What money they did receive went to projects that had nothing to do with saving lives. 

Yes, there is plenty of blame to around.  But this is not the time for finger pointing.  However, those who ARE in the blame game better get ready for some of it to come back at them.  You know the saying about the fan.

Some people seem to be confused by the very simplicity of the United States Constitution.  This is particularly true of secularists in their “interpretation” of the First Amendment.  It is so clear to any objective reader.  The first half of the amendment is called the Establishment Clause and it states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof; … “

Secularists only quote (and often misquote) the first half of this clause and they often ignore the second half.  The clause sets a limit on Congress in establishing a state religion.  The clause also sets a limit on Congress that prevents it from creating laws that interfere in the right of Americans to express their religions.  No where do the words “separation of church and state” appear in this or any other clause of the Constitution.

The Constitution of the United States uses very simple language.  That language is only confused by those who want it confused for their own purposes.  That purpose, for the secularists, is apparently to rid the United States of its underlying moral foundation…a foundation stemming from religions, particularly the Judeo-Christian religions.

Here is an example of this obfuscation.  Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor at Duke Law School, wrote for the Los Angeles Times (Minneapolis StarTribune, September 4, 2005) that “Everything known about (Supreme Court nominee John) Roberts suggests he would join with the most conservative justices to change the law in a conservative direction….(He)  coauthored briefs urging the court top adopt the radical (italics added) view that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is violated only if the government coerces religious participation.  Under this view, government aid could be used for religious indoctrination in parochial schools, sectarian prayer would be allowed in public schools as long as it was ‘voluntary,’ and there would be no limits on religious symbols on government property.”

Radical view?  God forbid!

It seems to me that Roberts has some ability to read.  He has simply quoted the Establishment Clause as written.  The clause DOES state that it is only violated when Congress forces a state religion upon us (establishment) and when it prevents us from exercising our chosen religion.  Secularists like Chemerinsky hate the fact that the Constitution is so simply written.  They have to work hard to “interpret” the language in a way that promotes their goals.  They use America’s law schools to indoctrinate the naïve into misreading one of the most brilliant documents ever created…in order to attain their own goal of destroying the basic fabric of the greatest nation in the world. 

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